Never Again!

[Echo]

Man! Just got through smelting some WW's, and I WILL NOT EVER buy WW's again! Sixty pounds for whatever I paid for them, and when opened, I found a LOT of Zincies, plus a lot of SO's. The SO's, not so bad, but the Zincies! I went through eBay, and got a rebate of $10, that ameliorated the situation somewhat, but then I found there were a LOT of little weights - a LOT! So when I finally got the whole mess straightened out I had about 40+ lbs of ingots, plus a few (4-5)pounds of stickies - and MANY pounds of steel clips and zincies! Pain in the tushie straining the clips and zincies, and now I have a pile of soldered-together trash that weighs - whatever.
Rant over - hope everyone had a great Father's day...

[FISH4BUGS]

I have been collecting WW's for many years now. I still have about 1500 lbs in the barn in 5 gallon buckets.
The buckets I am getting now are increasingly containing zinc ww's.
Some of the buckets that have bee in in my barn for a number of years are mostly (vast majority) lead.
Don't forget, lead ww's were banned by the tree huggers a few years ago. It is starting to catch up with us.

[Echo]

Never Again, Part II... Actually measured my output from the smelt, and I got 32+ lbs of WW ingots from a 60-lb box, including a tad I left in the dutch oven, 'cause I have some more WW's to smelt - but I am neither Mad Dog nor Englishman, so I'm NOT going out in the NoonDay sun, as 113 is predicted for this afternoon. Tomorrow AM will do fine...
And see the picture for the residue, zincies on table, dross in pan. Carrumba... the forum won't accept my picture! What's Los???

AHA! Did it! Shows the stack of clips & zincies, plus hand-sorted zincies on bench - had to resize the picture below 2Meg...

[mac1911]

I could not fathom buying a sight unseen bucket of wheel weights. You had it shipped also? Might be easier and cheaper to buy smelted WW or even virgin alloy?

Anyhow I work at a shop and we do tires. In just the past 5 years total lead wheel weight collection has down to about 40% of all the used wheel weights we take off.
Zinc are slowly vanishing it seems we see a lot of steel and "other" materials. Almost rubbery plastic stick ons.

I get a few random buckets of wheel weights from a range friend. He drops 2-3 buckets a year off allway full to the top. Only thing he takes in return is any big cal pistol brass I muster up through out the year. Its been a great relationship.
If Im lucky I get about 35% of that bucket in clip on wheel weights and another 10-15% of stick ons. the rest is steel,zinc and X
You need to find someone who wants your zinc. I have a few cannon shooters in the area and they pay ok cash for zinc...

[GhostHawk]

And that is why some of us spend a dollar a pound for fluxed COWW in ingots delivered to our door.

I am lucky, I have a local source who sometimes sells here. Anytime I need what he is selling I PM we work out a time to meet. He delivers, I pay, both of us walk away happy. As it should be.

I don't have to smelt, pick zinc, cuss SOWW, burn fuel to get my nice clean ingots.
To me it is worth every penny.

My prefered casting mix is roughly 50/50 range lead and COWW with perhaps some tin added for rifle.

Works for me. YMMV

[dverna]

I decided years ago that finding and smelting junk was not worth my time. Better to buy what I need from guys here. Even bought a ton of commercial 92-6-2 alloy. I have a lifetime supply when I factor in reclaiming lead from my range.

[lightman]

When you buy wheelweights now days you take your chances, even if you can see them. Fortunately the yield is holding up pretty good around here. I do my smelting in the winter time, after hunting season, or in the early spring.

[mac1911]

I have been lucky also. I get almost all my lead for free. Out of the 1200plus pounds I have on hand I think there $50-75 hard earned cash in that pile. My smelting equipment is all free to except the cost of a nice pair of welders gloves and a respirator.
I spend a lot of time at home especially nights with not much to do so smelting and casting fills that void well

[FISH4BUGS]

I spend a lot of time at home especially nights with not much to do so smelting and casting fills that void well

DING.....DING......DING.....we have a winner! THAT'S why we smelt.
I murdered my TV with my son about 25 years ago. We took it to the range and machine gunned it and finished it off with a 20 ga shotgun. Yes, we cleaned up the mess.
That means I have more spare time to fill with yard work, gardening, and all things casting (in the winter mostly).
The sorting and smelting is just all a part of the deal. Enjoyable? Not so much....but necessary. It is that self-sufficiency thing.

[Echo]

And that is why some of us spend a dollar a pound for fluxed COWW in ingots delivered to our door.

I am lucky, I have a local source who sometimes sells here. Anytime I need what he is selling I PM we work out a time to meet. He delivers, I pay, both of us walk away happy. As it should be.

I don't have to smelt, pick zinc, cuss SOWW, burn fuel to get my nice clean ingots.
To me it is worth every penny.

My prefered casting mix is roughly 50/50 range lead and COWW with perhaps some tin added for rifle.

Works for me. YMMV

In the past I had good luck buying from The Captain, good product and good price, Thought I could save a little money buying raw WW's, and learned my lesson...

[Smoke4320]

and sometimes its just to clean up all the extras we have accumulated
I let all the different items/styles of scrap add up to a point I can make a useful alloy .. Theirs no rush for me when it gets done it gets done
usually fall or winter

[Tom W.]

I paid $25 probably eight years ago for a five gallon bucket of ww and whatever else junk was thrown in with it. It's still under the back steps, awaiting my son to retrieve it for me. I have a plastic milk jug crate that's almost full of nice clean ingots plus a few corncob ingots that are mostly tin. I'm probably set for life. If not, I'll try making boolits from zinc. From what I've read they are light, and need no lubrication.

[Nose Dive]

Hmmm well... Caveat Emptor... Or.. 'buyer beware'.....

I buy, smelt, ingot, cast buckets of "STUFF" from where ever I can find it. WW's...fittings...road kill... pipe...soooo....

I dump my 'buckets of stuff' on the drive way.. spread it all out and water wash with hose. I have a steep drive way and things drain well. So...what's left.... Hmmm....dry goods.... I see Zinc, Aluminum...copper...pewter...lead... One nowadays has to segregate the trash, well, from the trash...one can identify zinc WW's and other stuff....Yes...YES...yes...it does take some time...but time now...saves time later.

So...again... you pay less...you get less... I do buy a bucket or so of WW's from a 'tire store' in south Bexar County. No 'new' tires sold there, but... I do get WW's from them. $15 bucks or so for each bucket. and they now, have to help me load them in the back of my truck. "cash and carry'....

Oh...also... I take a few pounds of my 'home made, home recipe, home smoked' deer sausage when I drive all the way down there. I also don't need to do my 'segregate' step in those buckets of WW's when I get them from Rodrigo.

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

[fredj338]

IT is location specific, but I stopped collecting ww about 5yrs ago out here. After they banned the lead ww, if you could even get someone to sell them to you, 75-80% would be steel or zinc, not worth the time or $$. I berm mine now or trade others lead for bullets or buy from some vendors here.

[Hardcast416taylor]

For many years I was given the weight scrap pail from several gas stations and at present for free from my buddy`s car dealership. The last pails from the dealership was near 50% Zinc with the remainder lead weights, stick ons and some sort of stick on tape weight. I still have now 6 full to the top hand sorted lead weights in 5 gal. pails to smelt. With the several hundred lbs. of already smelted WW I am set for the remainder of my life. Other types of leads including isotope shieldings should bring that gross to a ton or more.Robert

[NoAngel]

32 pounds from a 60 pound bucket ain't bad by today's standards. You get it from some of these bigger box stores that deal almost exclusively in newer vehicles and you're darn lucky to get that much. One of the big box stores gives me a 5 gallon bucket every week. I do good most weeks to get a coffee can full of something useful. The rest I sell for scrap metal. It's free so I ain't fussing but honestly, that's the new norm. As fish4bugs said, it's finally catching up to us.

[Retumbo]

I pay $0.32/lb so a 50% lead harvest would be $0.64/lb. Good deal.

[Walter Laich]

while I'm retired and on fixed income I have found that WW are no longer profitable vs. buying smelted lead.

could be as I've aged I find the most disagreeable jobs get bypassed.

My buddy and I will still get the occasional 5 gal bucket from the indoor range but WW are now way in the past for us

[DerekP Houston]

I tried WW a few times and bought 'range scrap' off the bay....My experience was similar. Just not worth the time or expense for my purposes as I wasn't getting a stellar deal on the raw materials to begin with. If I was getting it for free that would be a different story but barring that I'll just pay a buck a lb for clean ingots to my door.

[mold maker]

I tried WW a few times and bought 'range scrap' off the bay....My experience was similar. Just not worth the time or expense for my purposes as I wasn't getting a stellar deal on the raw materials to begin with. If I was getting it for free that would be a different story but barring that I'll just pay a buck a lb for clean ingots to my door.

If your $1/lb source is smelting WWs, his supply will run out before you expect it to. Are you willing to keep paying him to sort them for you?
The only dependable source is your own inventory stockpilled before they are unobtainable.